We can say we are still solid in our financial position. We have reached an equity ratio of 62% now, and we will continue our investments despite these cyclical developments that we see to ensure organic growth for the future. Overall, I must say, given the cyclical downturn that we now experience, I am pleased with the solid result that we have achieved. I would like to give you some more details on the order intake, obviously the most obvious indication for the downturn that we're running through. This chart, you can see the evolution of the order intake since 2019. The data points are showing the order intake for the previous six months, always to the half year. So we're talking about the order intake from July of the year before to June of the actual year.
And so in our case, for example, you can see in the blue dot, 2024, in the last 12 months, we had an order intake of CHF 2.8 billion. You can see with the blue line that the order intake has been declining already for a while. We had that incredible rebound after Corona, which peaked in 2022. Remember, supply chains were getting scarce, and everybody was fearing of not receiving enough material. So that had a huge impact, and then it started to normalize again in 2023. Now we have a rather low cycle in the order intake that you can see there. I would want to mention four topics that are leading to the situation as we have it now. I started off with mentioning that the agricultural machinery sector, and that is about 50% of our sales, experienced a strong decline in demand.
It started already last year but exceeded our expectations this year. The second element is another sector that is starting to decline now. That's the glass-forming machinery sector, which does not really come as a surprise because we have been watching our customers as well, and they have seen a decline in demand, and they were less optimistic, so they're holding back with investments. The third element that I'd like to mention for that is a slowing down in the electromobility sector that has an impact on Bucher Municipal with our machinery there, as well as on Bucher Hydraulics that sells inverters and converters. And the fourth element I want to mention is just the pure simple fact that a lot of our customers are adjusting to the new availability of material.
A year ago, we were still all struggling to provide customers with the right amount, and now this issue has gone, and everybody's adjusting their supply chain, their own supplies, their stocks again to that new normal. That comes like an amplifier to the lower demand that I explained before. The red line on this chart shows the decline in sales in the last 12 months. Some sales came from still the good order book that we had towards the year-end or at the beginning of 2024. That has reached now more normal levels. You can see the CHF 1.1 billion order book that is just about four months in sales, slightly above the historical average that we had before. Okay, compared to the prior year, our key figures are as follows: for 2024 until June, order intake declined by 22% to CHF 1.2 billion.
All divisions were affected from that downturn. Sales were below the prior year period by 11% and reached CHF 1.7 billion. Only Bucher Municipal could increase sales in the first six months. The order book remained slightly above the historical average. I mentioned that and declined by 35% to CHF 1.1 billion. The initiated cost-saving measures are showing effect, and it will be continued throughout the year. As such, we could secure the operating profit at CHF 178 million, and that is the equivalent of 10.3% of sales. Just as a reminder, 10% of sales is basically our target over the cycle. So we're still above that presently. I will now present the market situations and the business developments of the divisions to you, and we will start off with the agricultural market that has decreased substantially in the first half of 2024.
Order intake continued to slow down during this seasonally weak second quarter in any place and declined by 30% overall in the first six months. The reasons are a multitude, but I would like to comment on some of them. First of all, we are well present in Brazil, and the Brazilian market sharply cooled off in the last 12 months, actually, of this year and of this and last year, and that had a clear effect on the overall result of Kuhn Group and on the sales. But with the Brazilian market, we also saw a decline now in the European market. We see weaker subsidy programs or subsidy programs that ran out. We have an uncertain political climate.
All these regulations that are coming up, also with Farm to Fork, that are implemented on the short term sometimes just create uncertainty for the future of what machinery we will need. Wet weather, especially in Europe, has not helped the situation. For some farmers, it was difficult to get into the field with heavy machinery. They would sink in, and so they couldn't work the field as they wished. Some of them are also hoping now, with the decline in demand, that the prices will come down a bit as well and are waiting for better opportunities. But in a more general term, in a more global term, I think we should also look at the commodity prices as we're always doing it. And you will see here on the left chart the grain prices for soy, wheat, and corn, especially for the United States.
Then the orange line is the wheat price in Europe, but basically they are roughly in sync. You can see that since the beginning of last year, these prices have continuously come down, obviously squeezing more and more the margins of the farmer. That discouraged, obviously, investments as well. It also meant a certain uncertainty. That sector that went a bit better is actually the dairy and livestock markets. You can see the dairy prices on the right side of the chart for Europe and the US, and you can see that basically the milk price has maintained the level of about mid to last year. So we have more stability there. To no surprise, we also see that our crop production sector, all the products that we have in that sector, have declined substantially more than the sector of dairy and livestock.
There will be more elements that are kicking in for the farmer or that have been prevailing as well. Interest rates remained high at the moment. And then obviously one element that is also important are salaries that the farmers have to pay because they have basically increased everywhere. So all in all, this puts pressure on farm income and the incredible good years of 2022 and even some of 2023 are over now. And then we have the last element is that the dealer stocks for agricultural machinery are still very, very high. They ordered a lot last year because they were uncertain of what they could get. Now they received all the material, and the sell-off is not as quick as they had anticipated. So that is another last element that slows down the demand on our side.
Sales decreased by 17% significantly in the first half year for Kuhn Group. I mentioned Brazil being a major contributing factor, but also Europe, while North America could continue to benefit from a solid order book and maintained the sales level of last year. Actually, in effect, it even increased it slightly. The operating profit margin was significantly below the high level of previous years and decreased by 38%, but remained in the double digits. The outlook for the whole year for Kuhn Group is as follows. Demand for agricultural machinery is still unlikely to recover in Europe and Brazil in the second half of this year as the inventory levels at the dealers are still at a high level. North America should remain relatively stable against this backdrop.
Kuhn Group expects sales to decrease and the operating profit margin for the year 2024 to be lower despite cost measures initiated already at the beginning of this year. I would change over to our next division, Bucher Municipal. In the first half year of 2024, the demand for municipal machinery was stable overall. Bucher Municipal's order intake fell by 9% compared to the prior year, but we can look at it more differentiated by category. The sector that improved was the truck-mounted sweeper sector as well as the sewer cleaning vehicles segment. That has to do also with the availability of truck chassis. Both of them require truck chassis, and they put their build-up onto these truck chassis. And since this now becomes readily available, we can ship more and make more customers happy. So there we had a positive impact. The business for compact sweeper segments declined somewhat.
That had to do with multiple effects, but one major element was the lower or the slowdown in subsidies for electrified vehicles, especially in Europe. And remember, we have a full range of electrified sweepers that have been selling pretty well in the past. If I look at the refuse collection vehicles, that segment that we sell in Australia, there we saw some reduction in orders, basically compared to a very high previous year. And then on the other hand, we have the winter maintenance equipment that increased as well. Sales increased compared to the prior year by 8%. The order book continued to have a reach of six months, and the business for maintenance and spare parts also continued to develop positively. The new division's ERP solution was successfully rolled out at the first location in Denmark, and further locations are now to follow.
The operating profit margin improved significantly and achieved 8.2%. This was due to better capacity utilization, but also due to the efficiency measures that have been taken in the past couple of months or last year. Bucher Municipal expects in their outlook for the whole year demand to fall slightly from a high level driven by a slowdown in the compact sweeper business. Thanks to the high order book, the divisions expect sales to be in line with the previous year, which should also be supported by the increase in services. The operating profit margin is likely to rise, but will probably not quite reach the margin target of 9% due to the expected product mix for the second half of 2024. I will now talk about Bucher Hydraulics.
The hydraulics market weakened and the order intake was down by 16% compared to the high level recorded in the prior year period. Again, here are multiple factors. Some of them are known. You probably have heard that the tractor manufacturers are suspending operations or are taking longer vacation breaks and so on. And they are at the same time normalizing their supply chain or even sometimes freezing orders for later delivery. Also, demand for construction machinery has decreased in the first six months. And another element is the mobile electric drive technology solutions that have slowed down in demand, albeit from a very high level the year before. On a positive note, demand is stabilizing in other areas. We see in material handling, bottoming out, or even a slight increase, or also an increase for industrial applications.
Regionally, we can say that North America and to some extent also China, we see some growth elements. The division's sales declined overall by 11%. The order book was reduced to a reach of the normal three months that we had in the normal years before. The operating profit margin remained 11.6%, well in the double digits. The division continued to rigorously follow through with the cost-saving measures initiated already a year before. The outlook for Bucher Hydraulics for the full year 2024 is as follows. While the stabilization has begun in some early cycle markets, it's expected to continue. Bucher Hydraulics expects demand in agricultural machinery markets to remain low for the rest of the year. The division is benefiting from a reasonable order book, but expects sales and the operating profit margin to decline due to the slowdown in the market momentum.
The division will continue to rigorously follow through with the cost-saving measures. We have initiated short-time work, expanded vacation, and so on and so on. I will give you an update on Emhart Glass now. The demand for glass forming machinery and inspection machinery has weakened and declined in the first half year of 2024 compared to the very strong period in 2023. It was particularly Europe and North America where we saw the decline. We just see that the customers there are holding back with investments and renewal. However, somewhat also Asia has shown less investments in equipment.
So while the demand for new machinery, be it glass forming or be it the inspection business, declined sharply now for the first half, the maintenance services and spare parts business has a stabilizing effect, and that is an important portion of the sales of Bucher Emhart Glass, and that stabilized the sales also in the first half or in the first six months of 2024. Order intake altogether fell significantly by 38% compared to the high level of the prior year period. We had no cancellations, but some postponements. Capacity utilization remained good thanks to the high order book that now has a reach of six months. Overall, the division recorded a single-digit decline in sales. The operating profit margin fell slightly to a very high 20.4%, but still attained that good level.
The outlook for Bucher Emhart Glass for the full year 2024 is as follows: after three exceptionally strong years, Bucher Emhart Glass expects the demand for glass container manufacturing equipment to weaken further. Thanks to a good order book at the beginning of the year, the division anticipates only slightly weaker sales than the amount recorded in 2023. Accordingly, the operating profit margin is expected to be somewhat lower than the year before. Finally, I will turn to Bucher Specials. That's always a mixed picture. As you remember, Bucher Vaslin, where we make the grape presses, had a low order intake, clearly below last year's levels. Probably an aftermath of the drought is one element, but also a reaction to dwindling subsidies or subsidy programs. We're looking at Bucher Unipektin, which makes presses and filtration systems for beer, et cetera.
There, the market stabilized at a lower level, but we can see that investments were made again in that segment. Order intake fell just short of the previous year's figures. Order intake for Bucher Automation, the third business unit within Bucher Specials that produces electronic components for Emhart Glass, but also for agricultural machinery and also for Bucher Hydraulics. They are obviously experiencing the slower momentum of their colleagues in the other divisions, and so they had a decline in order intake. Finally, we have Bucher Landtechnik, that kind of stabilized at previous year's levels or had a slight decline. Overall, Bucher Specials' order intake was slightly below the prior year's period and decreased by 7%. Division sales was impacted by seasonal factors and declined by 12%. The lower sales level put pressure on the operating profit margin, which was 2% on the lower side.
The outlook for 2024 for Bucher Specials is as follows. Bucher Unipektin expects the market environment to continue to weaken, while Bucher Vaslin and Bucher Landtechnik are expecting stabilization at a lower level. Bucher Automation, on the other hand, expects a further slowdown in the market environment and has already initiated measures on the cost side. In this challenging environment, Bucher Specials expects a slight decline in sales and a lower operating profit margin compared to the same period last year. I will now hand over to Manuela Suter. She will present the financial situation and the overall results.
Thank you, Jacques, and good afternoon. Over the last month, we have visited several production sites as part of our strategy review, and it's always exciting to walk through our production, see new products, talk about long-term trends, innovation, and growth potential, but also to meet highly motivated employees.
On the other hand, we are currently also using these meetings to discuss the implemented short-term measures with the following focus areas: reducing stock, with lower sales, inventories remained high, and we see first signs of a reduction in the first half of the year. Second, optimizing costs. Lower capacity utilization impacted our profitability, and we are working on cost-saving measures with the aim of maintaining our double-digit margin. And this leads me to the first slide. Despite an organic downturn of 9%, the EBIT margin was maintained in the double-digit range and remained above the target of 10% over the cycle. Jacques mentioned it, a solid result, which shows that our division has proactively implemented cost-saving measures. Looking at the below-the-line items, we achieved a positive financial result of CHF 5 million, which is still driven by interest income and the results from short-term investments.
The effective tax rate of 21% was in line with the prior year. As mentioned in March, our midterm guidance or midterm range, we expect an effective tax rate between 21% and 23%. For this year, 2024, the tax rate will most likely be in the lower half of this range. Overall, the profit for the period is CHF 145 million. It's a 27% decline year-on-year and is also reflecting the lower utilization. On the next chart, you can see the development of our net operating assets in gray. At the right side, average NOA increased by 15% compared to last year and reflects strategic investments in the expansion of production infrastructure and the modernization of our facilities, as well as an increase in net working capital, mainly driven by lower advances from customers at Kuhn Group, partly compensated with declining inventories.
The average inventory turnover remained low, but at the end of the reporting period, the inventory levels were below prior year and for the first time in three years. As mentioned in the beginning, there is almost no destocking. We do not go into the warehouse and talk about the measures taken to reduce stock. The decline in profitability and higher NOA have resulted in a renewal decline to 19.1%, close to our 20% target over our business cycle. Moving on to the cash development on the next slide. The cash flow of CHF -219 reflects the usual seasonality with an increase in net working capital and the payment of the dividend.
CAPEX of around CHF 59 million during the first half included construction projects such as the new building for Bucher Automation in Marbach, Germany, which was just finalized in July, or the new factory at Bucher Emhart Glass in Malaysia, where production is expected to move during the upcoming month. For the full year 2024, we expect a CAPEX level of around CHF 150 million. The cash outflow for acquisition includes the purchase of the remaining 40% of our winter maintenance equipment business by Bucher Municipal. In July 2024, and therefore not on this waterfall chart, we have additionally agreed upon the acquisition of the remaining 20% minority shares of Bucher Hydraulics business in Wuxi, China. Purchase price will amount to around CHF 17 million.
The cash outflow during the first half is also reflected in our net cash position at CHF 186 million, see on the right or at the right side on this chart at the end of June. Given our outlook and also the expected seasonal reduction in net working capital, we continue to expect a cash level of around CHF 500 million at year-end 2024. With this net position and an equity ratio of 62%, we are still in a very solid financial situation, which allows us to continue to focus on making the right investment decisions. So, to summarize, with the measures implemented to reduce stock and to optimize costs, we achieved a renewal close to 20% with an EBIT margin slightly above 10% and net operating assets of CHF 1.5 billion.
Second, we continue to invest in organic growth to make sure that Bucher Industries remains a technology leader also in the future. With that, let me hand back to you, Jacques, to give us the outlook.
Thank you, Manuela. So, I explained the outlook for each of the divisions, and I'll try to summarize that once more for the group. So, we expect that the volatile environment that we have at the moment is going to continue for the second half of the year. Especially, it's unlikely that the agricultural machinery market will see a quick rebound, but the stabilization in some of the other markets that we're in has already started, so that will balance out a bit. The group expects lower sales in 2024 due to the decreased capacity utilization.
The operating profit margin will also expect to decline compared to the prior year, but should be able to remain at the double-digit level. Accordingly, the group's profit for the year is expected to be lower than the high level recorded in 2023. We would now stop the recording on the one side and then move over to the Q&A session. We do it as such that you can raise electronically your hand, and then we will call you. At that moment, we'll ask you to turn on your camera and the microphones so that we can see who you are and that you are not an avatar. So, we would start off. I see one hand up, and that's Charly Fehrenbach's hand.
Hello, good afternoon, everybody.
Your earlier, your previous guidance for the sales in full year said you expect a decline, a slight decline of sales in the full year. Is the assumption correct that a slight decline could mean something in the low range of single digit of 1%-3%, and that now the new guidance without this slight could mean lower sales in the mid or to higher single digit range? Thank you.
Yeah, we will not give you the exact number, but especially the second part of your sentence is probably correct, yeah.
Mid to higher single digit in this area, it could be realistic. Thank you.
Probably more towards a higher digit, higher single digit, yeah.
Okay, thank you.
Good, I see Tobias Fahrenholz reaching out.
Yes, here I am, hi. Let's pick a bit on the AG business and the trends there. You were mentioning very, very high inventories.
How big are they? So, how long would you expect the destocking to last? Maybe you could also give us a feeling what kind of percentage impact did this have so far? And then on AG as well, I mean, entering the election period in the US, I remember last time the president wanted to gain some voters and he gave out some special subsidies. So, is it again a possibility this year and would it be sizable? And then last but not least, the easiest question, in which half year would you expect a return to growth in the AG business at the earliest?
The million-dollar question at the end, yeah. How long will destocking last? Well, obviously, that depends a bit on the demand side on the farmers. Now, that said, the farmers don't have these great times in the US we had in 2022 and also some of it 2023, but they're still buying machinery. It's not that they're completely stopping, that is for sure. So, there is some destocking happening, but it is, of course, not at the speed that we would love to see it. We will have to assume that the destocking will still last for the next six months, eventually a little bit into 2025, but that's the best estimate that we have at this moment.
Then you asked the question of the percentage effect, that one I didn't quite understand.
It was a question if, yeah, half of the demand was reduced due to inventory destocking or if it, yeah, yeah, you partly answered it, but.
Yeah, that is probably pretty difficult for us to answer. We see.
Then the election subsidies, well, if it was Trump, who would have to be re-elected or maybe a Republican, then probably the subsidies could have had a peak towards the election. That's the way it was last time. But this time, Democrats not being as close to farming are probably not going to raise the subsidies at a short-term notice. And so, we don't see an effect there.
Good.
I would continue. We have Walter Bamert raising the hand.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. Not on vacation.
Hello?
Yep, we can hear you. Works.
Good. Would you still have the view that hydraulics is your most early cyclical business, basically the canary in the coal mine? And there, do you think it's destocking that's over now that it's picking up in demand in some areas, or do you really think this is?
Is she muted?
Yeah, now you muted yourself, or we muted you. Yeah, okay.
Surprising how that works with the muting. Is that changing demand in the cyclical businesses, or is it just, let's say, a temporary effect that destocking is over?
First of all, your question was, is it the early cyclical business? Yes, I still believe it's early cyclical. You have started seeing contraction effects already last year. Mid of last year, it started to decline. I think the element that surprised us more this year was that the agri business is shrinking so quickly. I mean, we are delivering to tractor manufacturers, and the newspapers are full of what they're doing at the moment. And at that rate, we had not anticipated it. Probably nobody had anticipated it at that rate, but that's happening now.
So, these orders, obviously, their stocks with hydraulic components are more or less full, and these orders are just going to be suspended until they pick up operations again. But in other sectors, for example, material handling sectors, specifically in the US, that is genuine demand that I don't think has to do anything with destocking. Their distribution centers are being built again and so on. So, there it seems to be more maybe already an early cyclical sign of rebound. And in China, we saw some recovery, maybe now in effect after the closure that they had until spring of last year. And they're recovering somewhat. So, that I would also assume as being a genuine demand.
Construction.
And maybe the third biggest segment, the construction, we see more normalization.
Bottoming out.
Bottoming out, yeah. Exactly.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Thank you for the question.
Now we have Chiara Tomisani.
Ja, hi, [Foreign language] .
Can we go to English?
Of course, yeah. The first question is on Brazil. Can you quickly remind me of the exposure there? Is roughly half of the America exposure of Kuhn Group attributable to Brazil, or is there any sort of ballpark that you can provide us there?
Yeah, usually it's in good years, it can be a fifth of Kuhn Group's business. And well, if you divide it in half or so, then it's obviously a bit less now. But that's about the lever that we have.
Sounds good. Second question is on net working capital. I guess in the beginning of the year, you had some sort of net working capital relief in mind that you aim for this year. Given what we have seen in the first half of the year, at what sort of number could we think about in that context?
I'll just make a general statement and leave afterwards the number to Manuela Suter. But yeah, that is a headache that we're working on continuously in all of the business units. They're all aware of it. They're all trying to get rid of their stocks. But then again, of course, it needs the customers to pull it out and to work it through. In some elements, we were a bit late in discovering how much the downturn would be. And so, we continuously had to react to it. But it is an ongoing topic.
Now, the numbers question, I'll leave over to Manuela.
Yeah, a bit slower than expected, but has to do with lower sales in particular in the areas that we just mentioned. For the second half, we expect also, I mentioned the guidance of CHF 500 million net cash position at year-end. That means we expect roughly CHF 200 million net cash reduction in the second half year, but it also depends on the advances from customers at Kuhn Group.
Got it. And the third question is on CapEx. I mean, you mentioned CHF 150 million. If I see it correctly, first half was definitely not a run rate if you would double it to get anywhere close to CHF 150 million. Would that mean you really have this strong acceleration in mind, or do you think that there are some whatever constraints on really spending all that amount that is then earmarked for the second half?
Normally, on average, in the past, we spent one-third in the first half and then normally two-thirds in the second half. So, CHF 150 million is still a reasonable amount. We reduced some of the CapEx, in particular, for example, in agriculture or for Kuhn. However, we still invest. It's important to invest in R&D and CapEx for future growth. So, we did not cut important CapEx, just some of the projects.
I feel I can add also that there were some buildings that we had already planned and initiated the construction. And these will be finished and obviously add to the CapEx now. But that is always a very long-term view of 10, 15 years that we have to take. And then we kind of react to the cycle too much.
Got it. If I may snatch in a small follow-up or housekeeping question with regard to the financial result, is the H1 number sort of a ballpark or sort of a runway that we could think about, for example, also for the second half?
Yes, I think so. We should be more or less in a similar range to last year, slightly lower. We still benefit from short-term financial investments, mainly in Brazil. So, yes, to double the results from the first half makes sense.
Great. Many thanks.
I see Roberto Casoni raising his hand.
Yep. Here we are. Good afternoon, everyone. I have a couple of questions. The first one is more generic. I've seen a very nice chart you presented earlier, which is basically it gives a sense of what is the time lag between order intake of the past 12 months and sales.
So, it looks like basically that sales are set to accelerate their decline into the next 6-9 months. It depends on how order intake will go in the next quarters. But given the fact that you're giving us very sort of lack of visibility for the moment, we can assume that intake will not come as strong as we all hope for the next six months. So, my first question is, if I follow that chart and inclination of that chart, how would you see 2025 if basically intake stays stable and doesn't recover at the speed that you expected? Instead of agriculture, I'm looking at glass. I mean, glass is a typical example of very late input on sales coming from previous orders, yeah? And so, I'm just trying to understand what is your view on 2025, exactly given that chart.
The second question is on margins. I mean, I was positively surprised by the fact that you maintained a very strong gross margin. Generally speaking, we don't have gross margin per division, but so it's still at a very solid 50%, which can be due to the fact that some of the materials are costing less and possibly together with a less favorable mix. But 50% is still a very, very strong kind of now, whatever comes below that, I don't want to say that are fixed costs, but you have labor that is more or less flat year-on-year. Well done, because wage inflation is still there and it's difficult to manage. And other income, I don't know how to treat them.
But to cut it short, if it's true that you see a high single-digit decline, which is basically, say, round number 10%, so we don't make it, which basically means CHF 350 million lower sales, we should be having a CHF 170 million lower gross margin. And I don't want to understand. I need to understand how much this is going to be reflected into your EBITDA for this year and next year, how much you're controlling your cost, and basically what kind of measures, particularly short-term measures, because eventually you don't want to disrupt an organization into the moment when possibly demand picks up again. So, that is a very difficult exercise. I would like to understand how you manage this operating leverage more in detail, if it's possible. Thank you.
I'll try to give some comments on these many questions. I'll let Manuela add on.
More questions are considerations, yeah.
Yes. I mean, first of all, if it's about the decline in the second half of 2024, if we look at the percentage numbers, we also have to have the base effect in mind. We were now comparing ourselves still with a rather strong first six months of 2023. We had seen some decline already happening in the second half of 2023, and we will be comparing ourselves to that period now as we go forward. So, basically, we have to keep that in mind. Looking into next year, as you said, yes, there is a high likelihood that the glass sales are going to come down, that we can see basically in the project and the project pipeline and the orders that are reflected in it. And we believe that there will be some other sectors that eventually should improve again.
So, that should compensate for some of the decline that we have there. That is the beauty of our more broader setup that we have within Bucher Industries. Now, how much it's going to improve in AG, for example, which is 50% of our business, it's still a bit difficult to anticipate. But we believe also once the dealers have sold off their material, there will be again more orders coming in, and we will have a bit more of a normalization happening again.
Right. But don't you see a lag effect, i.e., normally, as you've shown in the chart, when the order comes, sales will follow, but only with sort of two-quarters average delay, 2-3 quarters?
Yeah, well, that depends. If we look at Emhart Glass, then it is 6-9 months of delay.
AG machinery, we will get the first indication based on the pre-order season that we have. Usually, September is that pre-order month that will give us an early indication of what the dealers believe will be needed in 2025. But then at least half of the business really happens in the first quarter of 2025 for that season. And so, that is a 3- 4 month lag order intake to net sales. Hydraulics, at the moment, is at the delivery of about three months. So, there you see the vision.
Yeah, yeah, that's a short one.
Okay. Sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's a mixture of order intake versus sales. Okay. Now, on the gross margin side, yeah, in effect, I mean, obviously, we cannot maintain the strong EBIT margin that we had last year. So, we are suffering somewhat.
But of course, we have to address the topics that we can influence even on the short term. Now, bear in mind, a lot of our divisions do see cyclicality or seasonality, sorry, seasonality during the year. That is something that is natural in the nature of our business. So, adapting capacities is not completely strange to us. We're not coming out of a continuously only growth mode, and now suddenly we're surprised. Adapting capacities is something which we have been doing before. And yes, we have started that already in the first half, be it that we have longer vacation, reducing overtime. We did start with short-time/furlough, and there are multiple measures. And yes, we reduced our headcount as well where possible. First, more with the temps, but then also with some fixed contracts. The material mix is a bit of a mixed picture.
Overall, probably the material prices have stabilized versus last year. It has to wash through our stocks first before we would even see a lower material price index. So, that could have an effect in the second half, how much I would be challenged to say so. But a little bit should be a positive there as well. So, these are the biggest levers. And obviously, here and there, there's a big agricultural show in November that got canceled that helps again. So, there's left and right. We're trying to reduce the cost if it's possible. And if it doesn't slow us down on our mid to long-term growth, because we're definitely not going to give up on that opportunity.
That's very kind.
I think you mentioned everything. Maybe with the temporary workers, we still have a share of temporary workers.
Of course, it depends on the countries, but of 15%. So, that keeps us still a bit flexible. We already reduced it by one-third compared with last year. But however, the share is still 15%, to give a number here. And as Jacques mentioned, yes, some tailwind is expected for material costs in the second half. On the other hand, employment costs are still a bit high. We also have increased our salaries for 2024, as every other industry did as well.
Yeah. Just a follow-up, a very stupid follow-up. But last year, the difference in salary cost between first half and second half was quite material. I mean, we're talking about CHF 460 against CHF 415 in second. And this is what you mentioned. I mean, the seasonality and the ability to basically have lower, is this what you're talking about?
Well, no, I think the last year we had, excuse me, we had this inflation effect last year as well. And that, of course, was reflected in salary negotiations. They were going right into double-digit increases.
I understand. But the difference between H1 2023 and H2 2023 for the same line, so staff cost, was materially different, was around 10% lower in H2 compared to H1. But that's fine.
We already reduced workforce, in particular temporary workers in the second half, I would say. It's not the salary cost. I would say it's more to
FTEs. Okay. Good. Thank you very much. Sorry. Thank you.
No problem. Thank you very much. Now we have Mr. Hasanaj who's going to join us with a question.
Good afternoon. Yeah, I think just a short one from.
Is that possible, or is it too much vacation background?
No, I can make it work. Just one second.
It's a bit more personal.
Here we go. Yeah, it was just a short question. I was wondering about the price effect that you saw in the first half year in terms of your order intake. And do you expect it to turn more negative in the second half year as you try to clear inventory?
Yes and no. The price effect was almost nothing in the first half year. And there were a couple of late projects that had a low price and now are being sold off to the customer. And basically, we are now offering and selling to better prices. I'm thinking especially of Bucher Municipal. So there, you would probably in the net effect see a better development. Then again, on the agricultural side, we do see a pressure on the pricing.
And it could be that here and there, either it's pricing or it's better payment terms or whatever, that the market demands that from us. So at the end, over the whole year, it's probably going to be a wash. Do we have any specific number that's about it as we can see it?
Thank you.
Thank you very much for following us. Last chance to raise your hand if there are any further questions. At the moment, I cannot see any hands. I know you have to cover a lot of companies. And in this moment, I would like to thank you for joining us. I know that it was a more interesting meeting as things have shifted suddenly. But as you can see, profitability is important to us, and we're trying to maintain that at a very solid level.
That is, of course, of high priority to us. In this respect, I hope we will see you in spring of next year at the latest when we have the 2024 results here. More specifically, that would be on February 28th, 2025, where we would have our press conference and analyst conference, and where we're going to explain the full year results for this year. Thank you for joining us. Have a nice summer and some nice vacation if it's still up for you. Bye-bye now. Okay.